By Nadia Oxford on Mar 23, 2011 in Casual Games, Culture, Sony
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Do you enjoy playing video games? Jane McGonigal, a published author and game designer, believes deep happiness and top productivity can be achieved by playing more games–lots more games. Take that, boss. Take that, mom and dad.
“Playing games is the single most productive thing we can do with our time,” McGonigal said at her PAX East panel which was reportedly branded “The Discrete Science of Why Games Make You a CONTAGIOUS VECTOR of...
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By Nadia Oxford on Mar 18, 2011 in Business, Casual Games, Digital Distribution
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Peter Vesterbacka, the owner of Rovio and by extension the big daddy behind Angry Birds, claims that console games are “dying.”
Automatic response: No, they’re not.
A more careful response crafted after observation of recent console sales: No, they’re not.
Vesterbacka made his declaration on a panel at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin. Innovation, Vesterbacka said, belongs to the mobile platforms, where developers can...
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By Nadia Oxford on Mar 17, 2011 in Business, Casual Games, Game Design
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This time last year, many of us were snickering at Microsoft’s “Project Natal” (aka Kinect) and taking bets on the size of the crater the camera unit would leave behind when the concept inevitably bombed. Now, with ten million Kinect units sold since November, only Microsoft is laughing–not only at our sheepishly hung heads, but at Sony’s PlayStation Move. Despite seeming like a much surer thing than the Kinect a year ago, the motion...
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By Nadia Oxford on Mar 16, 2011 in Business, Casual Games, Digital Distribution
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Digital distribution’s popularity is building at an impressive rate, but we still don’t associate it with mainstream game distribution. When we think of digital downloads, we think of game patches from the Big Guys, or an indie project from the Little Guys. The meatiest game fare is still found on the shelves of GameStop. But EA recently made a statement that could herald irrevocable changes for game retail.
In an interview published by Gamasutra on...
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By Nadia Oxford on Mar 15, 2011 in Business, Casual Games, Facebook
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Humans are an argumentative bunch of primates, and gamers are a particularly quarrelsome branch of that group. Brenda Brathwaite, the former creative director of LOLapps and the current COO of John Romero’s new company, Loot Drop, is particularly heartbroken over the community’s general boiling hatred for Facebook games. Whereas we’ll all unite to fight back against a slander piece like Fox News’ “report” on supposed sexual...
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